For the third year running, FOCAL will host its Finals Day tournament in central Birmingham.

We will be in The Calthorpe Suite at The Plough & Harrow (Best Western) on Hagley Road, just a short distance from the city centre.

Our Top Eight from 2018 will battle it out to see who takes the FOCAL Champion title, and everyone else is welcome to sign up for our Birmingham Open tournament!

Format
Doors open at 10am with free tea & coffee on arrival, for an 11am start, to play seven 9-round games of Countdown.

The Top Eight will play each other once over the course of the day, and after their seven games, the two players with the highest wins and points totals will go forward to the showpiece Grand Final, to play one more game which will decide who is the FOCAL Champion.

For everybody else, fixtures for the first four draws will be random, and after that will use a Swiss pairings system to match you with people on similar results.

This event uses the Bristol classroom format with big screen graphics. This means everyone plays along to the same letters rounds, and gets a turn at picking consonants and vowels for the room at some point.

For the numbers games, you’ll get to pick which combination of large and small numbers you want, in turn in your pairs, from our specially designed five-line display.

Conundrums will be revealed on the screen for everyone just as on the TV show. We will explain at the start of the day how each part of the contest runs, and give everyone a practice run consisting of a letters game, a numbers game and a conundrum just before the first match.

There will be a break for lunch after the second or third match, another short break during the afternoon and, if you don’t make the Grand Final, a chance to recharge your glass just before our showpiece gets underway.

How to book
The entry fee is just £10. To secure your place, send your entry fee to Jeff Clayton, FOCAL Chair by PayPal or by cheque (address available on request).

Staying over?
Why not make a weekend of it! Also, since we’re running this event in late November rather than early-mid December this year, it offers up some cheaper room rates than during the Christmas party season. As such, room bookings are available online but FOCAL is not acting as an agent for the venue.